Excitement around the club will begin to ramp up with the arrival of the Blues' Darwin recruits this week, led by Charlie McAdam who made a couple of appearances for the club two years ago and is coming off an NTFL grand final appearance. 

Raven Marika, Jackie Brown and Adrian McAdam will also spark interest.

"The town's starting to get excited and they're right behind us," Hillier said.

But Hillier was more than impressed at the sight of Curtis Steele in Coly Blue in their only pre-season trial, against Lockhart almost two weeks ago.

"It was good to Steeley run around. He went across half-back and in the middle," Hiller said.

"He got plenty of it and obviously uses the ball well.

"It was good to see him in action and wearing our guernsey."

Hillier himself swapped roles with Steele and said it felt good to get his own first run with the club out of the way before Saturday's week's season opener against East Wagga-Kooringal at Gumly Oval. 

The Blues are unlikely to have big man Dean Pound available for round one, but expect the former league medallist to play an influential role after a couple of seasons heavily disrupted by injury. 

While another 2016 grand final player, Shaun Light, caught the coach's eye at Lockhart.

"It was good to see him back and running around. He's an exciting player," Hillier said. 

The Hume League opposition was ideal, the Blues believe, as they aim to transform this season.

"It's good to play sides from other leagues to see how they go about things," Hillier said.

"They had a pretty fast and fit side, and it was a bit of a young side which was a good test for us.

"That's what we're working on. -trying to run out games, and seeing how they run games out, and how they're spreading and running and using the footy - it was good."

Coleambally will lose James Fallon and Jess Spencer with clearances lodged for the pair to return to Riverina League runners-up Griffith.

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